The first casualty
by Firecadet
Summary: SWTOR character-based story, set five years after the end of the Makeb storyline. Inevitable spoilers. Major Junn Stormgrin is left behind when a mission on an imperial world goes south. His wife and three year old son are left to cope with his death, supported by the members of Havoc Squad. Elara Dorne/Male Trooper.
1. Chapter 1

It doesn't really matter where you live, if the holocomm goes off at three in the morning, local time; you know it's usually trouble.

When your husband is a special forces major, such a call is an even more worrying event than it might be usually be.

When he's leading the best unit in the Galaxy, it's always trouble.

Without getting out of her warm bed, Elara reached over to the holocomm she always left by the sign of her bed when Junn was away, hoping it wouldn't sound outside of office hours, and slapped the accept call button.

It was who she dreaded.

"Elara," General Garza said. "I need you to come into my office immediately. Don't disturb Haran." The matter-of-fact instruction not to disturb her three-year-old son hit Elara in the gut like a punch.

"The Major?" She asked, dreading the answer.

"This line isn't secure enough me to discuss that, Elara. I'll be in my office at the Republica building."

The mention of the building, in which the general's apartment was situated, brought a whole host of demons into being.

"I'm on my way." She responded, before slapping the end call button. She had always known this day would come. That knowledge didn't make its arrival any easier.

Numbly, she pulled on the uniform of the Republic Medical Corps, or MedCorps, as it was usually referred to. She had accepted the sideways promotion into the dedicated medical Corps when Haran came along, simply because SpecForce frontline operations were no place for pregnant soldiers. She'd hated letting Junn out from under her thumb, simply because Jorgen told her he still retained his eye for the fairer sex. Having the Cathar as her husband's XO made it possible to relax a little, plea because he came from the school of military training which never left any man behind, or allowed CO's to play away the instant their wife wasn't around.

Looking at the two speeders in the landing bay, Elara decided her company car, a liveried, but relatively anonymous Coruscant Motor Works airspeeder, or CMW for short, would be far more discreet than the family private speeder, a Kuati luxury model with a top speed approaching the sound barrier and a surprising number of seats, along with the inevitable modifications, such as chaff dispensers, a target lock warning system and a pair of light blaster cannons, not to mention the capital ship grade transparisteel windows and dura-alloy body panels that gave it the survivability of a light tank against anything short of capital ship grade weapons.

One of the few company features her CMW did come with was a full set of blue lights, allowing her to cut through the night traffic quickly on her way to visit Garza.

When she arrived, the general was in casual dress, cupping a snifter of correlian whiskey.

"19 hours ago, the Major sent me a message to inform me he was commencing Operation Proverb, a strike against imperial holdings on Barenthia V, in the mid-core. 15 hours ago, when the operation was overdue, I received this message." She pressed the button on the arm of her chair.

"General." A helmetless Cathar she recognised all too well said, holding on to one of the FM handles next to the holotransmitter of a BT–7. "We ran into some serious trouble on Barenthia. SIS missed a sensor array, and they must been tracking us the whole time we were advancing down the ravine.

First we knew of it was when half-dozen hover-tanks crested the next rise and opened fire with everything they had. Half of the Safecrackers and two of the Blackmoons went down instantly, before we returned fire. We lost another half-dozen retreating. The major wasn't hit, when we got back to the Avenger, they were waiting for us there too. The Major turned to me, and told me I was in command, and to get everyone home. Then he got the suppressor off his rifle, handed it to me, and told me to give it to Haran when he was six…" The Cathar's voice broke off briefly, and Elara saw several tears trickling down his face. "Then he hefted his rifle, told me to look after Elara for him, and charged them alone. He was still shooting when we raised the ramp. Then we had Imperial fighters incoming, and we lost him on sensors." The Cathar paused briefly, before continuing far more formally. "General Garza, it is my sad duty to report that Major Junn Stormgrin is missing in action, presumed dead. He passed command to me before he became detached from us. I'm sorry, we lost him." He continued, his face more visibly wracked them before. "I'm sorry, Elara. We lost him."


	2. Chapter 2

T+20hrs, Chan System

He could hear the dogs baying.

He'd broken free of the circle of imperial elite troops as much by luck as any sane judgement. Ten years of combat experience had picked out the single segment of the line from which the bolts were passing over him, rather than impacting around him, occasionally ablating layers from his body armour. He'd charged it, knowing it was his only chance once the avenger had lifted. The gamble had paid off.

He could hear the dogs on his tail.

Reaching into his belt, he pulled out a tiny holoprojecter, keyed to only respond to his fingerprints. It projected the image of three faces.

His face.

His wife's face.

His three year old son's face.

"I'll be there for your birthday." He whispered to the tiny face, meaning it as a promise. "I'll have the best present I can sneak past the quartermaster for you. I love you."

Major Junn Stormgrin dropped the tiny device back into his belt, before sealing his helmet, activating the proximity scanner, and vanishing into the jungle.

-0-

Elara didn't pilot her airspeeder back to her apartment. She was barely thinking at all about anything except her husband. To her numbed surprise, General Garza took the wheel.

"In my day," she said during the journey back to Elara's apartment. "I'd have thrown that blasted miralian all over the training mats for not being on the bloody ship. I founded the bloody unit, after all. And I'll be damned if I'm going to let him be the first of my successors as Havoc leader to die on the bloody job." To Elara's moderate surprise, being piloted by the General was like being flown by her husband, on the rare occasions she allowed him to drive on coruscant, owing to little things like traffic laws and other lane-users. The commentary on other drivers was somehow more inventive, if a little surprisingly explicit for a very senior officer.

When they got back to Elara's apartment, Haran was already awake.

"Don't be sad, mummy." She said, as she staggered inside, supported by the general. "Daddy's still here."

"Haran..."

"I just know, mommy. I just know." The boy said, before clocking the general.

"Hi, Aunty Eline." He said. "Daddy's said he'll get me the biggest present he can smuggle past the quartermaster for my birthday. I heard him in my head."

"Haran." Elara replied, confused by the boy's words. "That was a dream. I'm afraid daddy isn't coming home tomorrow. He's gone."

"He hasn't." The boy insisted. "He's coming home."

"Haran." Garza broke in. "Why don't you go an get a cookie and some milk."

As the boy wandered off torwards the kitchen, she turned to Elara.

"How long has he been doing that?" She asked.

"Answering back?"

"No." She replied. "Hearing things in his head."

"He always knew five minutes before me when Junn was going to arrive home, and what cakes I'd brought, and what daddy was giving him for his birthday. I just put it down to childhood intuition."

"Did you know Junn once turned down the chance to travel to Tython?" The General asked. "He was, or possibly still is, a Force-Sensitive."

"He turned down Jedi training?" Elara spluttered. "Why?"

"How much of your DNA is sith?" She asked, avoiding the question.

"Five point eight five nine one percent, sir." Elara replied promptly.

"And your midi-chlorian count?"

"Twenty percent above human average, sir. By republic standards. By imperial standards,, I'm about average."

"Interesting." The General mused, before hearing Haran coming back up the corridor. "Aric touches down in twenty or so minutes at the spaceport. Do you want to come, with Haran. He's practically the unit mascot. Even Aric dotes on him, never mind Fuse or Yuun."

"At half-four in the morning, general?"

"He's awake." The General replied. "He'd love it.

"Hmm." Elara said, scoping up her son, before stroking his head, just to feel the softness of his skin, a peculiar tone halfway between human pink and dark green like his father's. "Just this once." She said, before carrying the boy outside and dropping him into his car seat. "I just hope Jorgen doesn't try giving him another grenade, even if it is inert."

The last gift Aric had handed to his three year old "nephew" had been an inert grenade casing. Unfortunately, the staff at the local creche hadn't realised it was a dud when he brought it along for show and tell, then pulled out the pin to show how it worked. The resultant evacuation had closed the creche, the floors above and below, and the nearby traffic lanes until the bomb squad arrived, along with a photographer from the local holozine, who'd recognised and photographed Junn on paternal duty as he calmed down the teacher and called off the bomb squad.

"I spoke with him _very _firmly after that incident, Elara." The General replied. "He's promised to stick to blasters from now on."

"Blasters?" Elara replied. "What sort of blasters?"

"A hold-out target rifle, Jorgen thought. Very light, easy to handle, and totally safe."

"Safe?" Elara replied. "Giving a three year old a blaster rifle is safe?"

"What do you think he's going to be, when he grows up? He'll become a soldier, like his dad. Hopefully a more respectful and less aggravating one, but he'll be a soldier. He'll need be able to handle a blaster rifle then, and the sort Jorgen has lined up couldn't do more than scorch a target to show where it hit. I made sure of that."

With a child on board, Garza's driving was more considerate, in terms of factors such as actually using indicators during a lane change, and holding down her speed slightly.

The trip from the Stormgrin family apartment to the spaceport took about ten to fifteen minutes when Elara was driving, despite her husband's ability to make the journey in five minutes. It took the general seven to get from A to B, without a single exchange of paint or near collision, a fact of life when Junn was flying. They were waved through onto the landing area, just as the glow of a shielded craft appeared on the edge of the atmosphere, inbound.


End file.
